Sakurazaka Shouboutai Playtest

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Fight fires, from the makers of Disaster Report.

By Anoop Gantayat

The maker of Disaster Report are back on the gaming scene with its latest title for the Japanese PS2. Whereas the team's last game was a fight for survival against an earthquake and its aftermath, Sakurazaka Shouboutai (Sakurazaka Fire Battalion) places you in the shoes of a firefighter as you attempt to put out fires and save stranded victims.

Both games may at first glance seem to be about natural disasters, but the fire in Sakurazaka Shouboutai is actually man-made. Sakurazaka is the name of the town in which you and your fire patrol works. A small, peaceful town, no one would expect it to be the center of a string of bombing attempts and arson attacks. But, sure enough, that's the case, and one afternoon, the lead firefighter of your squad, and your personal mentor, dies in a factory fire that was apparently set by an arsonist. Following this incident, you continue fighting fires as ordered of your battalion, with the search for the real reason behind your mentor's death constantly in your mind.

Making up the brunt of the game is actual fire fighting through factories, office buildings and apartment complexes. The game is split into missions, each set in a different complex and spanning separate floors, which form stages within the missions. Clear a stage by completing an assigned task and you progress onto the next one.

For the most part, you and the members of your team are on foot, taking on fires and the environment with a variety of hoses and your trusty axe. Your main hose can be set to fire a spray and a direct stream. In the third mission, you gain an impulse hose, which you use by charging up blasts of water; the bigger the charge, the larger the flame you can put out. Your axe can be called-upon to break down obstacles like bookshelves and debris, useful for getting to hard-to-reach flames and hidden victims.

Having played through a few of the final Japanese version's missions, we're somewhat disappointed with the firefighting. The control over your hose and character is clunky and slow. Once you start firing your hose, you can make adjustments only horizontally; vertical adjustments require that you wait for your character to automatically aim after having cleared out the fire at his current level. The fires and the firefighting gameplay don't offer as much excitement as one would like from a firefighting game.

Thankfully, there's more to the game than just putting out fires on foot. Some stages have you disarm bombs by solving simple puzzles. Others put you high atop a fire ladder unit and ask that you clear flames outside a building before proceeding inside.

And even when you are on foot, working through a stage, simply putting out flames nonstop won't necessarily allow you to advance. Some stages require that you clear out all fires, but not just by sweeping all the floors with water; in one stage, for instance, clearing some of the more troublesome flames for good can only be done by switching on valves to set the floor's sprinkler system in motion and then putting out the fire in a central ventilation room. The game gives you hints to these sorts of puzzles.

Beyond putting out fires, though, your first and foremost priority in all stages is to rescue victims. Find a victim somewhere in a stage and you must lead her to safety, carrying her if she's unconscious. In some stages, it's okay to just take victims to the nearest stairwell, where a rescue team is in wait. Other stages require that you coordinate your efforts with a rescue ladder unit.

Coordination is one of the key points to the game. In addition to the rescue ladder, some stages give you a fire helicopter which you can order to different rooms to calm flames prior to your entry. In addition, you're in charge of your squad; you tell them where to go and what to do, and they do it. You can tell a character to move to a room, and she'll do so, putting out flames along the way. You can tell a character to pick up a victim and carry her to safety, and she'll do so, setting the victim down on the ground when fires block the path to the rescue team. The AI of your squad members is good; they don't get stuck behind walls, and they move realistically.

As leader, it's important that you make sure and not overwhelm a single member of your squad. All fire fighters, including yourself, have a life meter; take too much flame damage and the fire fighter becomes disabled (or, in your case, the game ends). You can send firefighters to the rescue team to be healed of their damage (you too can be healed), but if you wait too long and a firefighter passes out from damage, you're forced to carry her to the rescue team (you can also send one of your squad members to do the dirty lifting work, if you like).

The game does a good job of filling you in on your surrounding status so you can better make decisions. You have a map of the stage visible at all times, showing the location of squad members, fire fighting machines and discovered victims. The map also shows the level of damage a room has incurred from flames; with too much damage, a room becomes engulfed in flames as is considered "lost," so it's best to send squad members and fire-fighting vehicles to rooms that are in danger.

There's also lots of verbal communication between you, the members of your squad and your coordinating superior. Your superior gives you instructions and hints on what to do. Other members of your team fill you in when they've arrived at their designated location and also complain if they're being overwhelmed.

You also have a video view of your partners which allows you to see what they're looking at. This is great when one of your members gets buried under falling rubble and you're too busy to notice his screaming. You can switch the video feed between the members of your team with a simple button press.

There's a good amount of information to take in when fighting fires in Sakurazaka Shouboutai, and the coordination elements manage to make up for the middling firefighting mechanics. A time limit for each stage keeps you on your feet and keeps your priorities straight; saving a victim gives you a time boost, as does finding a small piece of evidence, but putting out a tiny insignificant flame won't do the same. Successfully clearing a stage can be a challenge, not twitch-based but mental.

Once you've finished a level, your job doesn't end. Items that you've collected in a stage can be analyzed in your office. You also receive e-mails of thanks from the people you've saved. Scrutinizing these resources help to solve the mystery behind an unfolding storyline.

As you learn early on through cinema sequences placed before and during Sakuraazaka Shouboutai's many stages of play, someone is responsible for all the fires that have been breaking out in Sakurazaka, and finding out whodunit is one of your many jobs as a firefighter.